Late last week I traveled to Portland, OR, on business and was enthralled by the gorgeous autumn colors framed by the windows of the plane as we descended from thousands of feet to the base of Mount Hood, its snow-capped peak shrouded mysteriously in ominous clouds. The bright reds and yellows carved meandering pathways all the way down […]

In the words of Julia Child, “Cassoulet, that best of bean feasts, is everyday fare for a peasant but ambrosia for a gastronome, though its ideal consumer is a 300-pound blocking back who has been splitting firewood nonstop for the last twelve hours on a subzero day in Manitoba.” Cassoulet is a French dish of […]

A couple of years ago we chose to serve a hearty cassoulet for a dinner we were hosting for a few friends. All of the ingredients were readily available in local markets except one, duck leg confit, or confit de canard. After exhausting all of the prospective local resources I ordered a tin containing six […]